a medical librarian's adventures in evidence-based living

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May 28, 2012

The Bee Movie. The Queen of the Sun - What Are the Bees Telling Us?

If you received this post via email, click here, to get to the website & view the trailer, the links, & leave a comment.

On Thursday, my husband forwarded this to me at work.

The message: What were you thinking when you added this to our Netflix queue? Another loser movie?

Me: Not me. You must have added it! You probably heard about it from one of your gardening magazines or when you were doing research for your insect presentation. Why would I order a movie about bees?

Lab Rat: Definitely not me! You added it.

Turns out--it was me. As I wrote this post, I realized I added it months ago from a recommendation by Frederic & Mary Brussat.

Saturday Afternoon - Sitting in Our Lush Sunny Backyard

We grabbed books, the newspaper, and sank into lounge chairs to enjoy the sun and the quiet of the late afternoon. Son #2 enjoyed a Green Smoothie along with Chex Mix--a old-time favorite comfort snack of his.

Beekeeper and healer Sara Mapelli performs with 12,000 bees in a scene from Queen of the Sun

"Queen of Sun explores the varied reasons for colony collapse while providing a road map for combating it: the eradication of monoculture farming, abandoning the use of pesticides that end up harming bees more than the pests they're meant to eradicate, and stopping migratory beekeeping that truck bees all over the country, killing millions in transit and stressing the colonies."

I still had no idea which of us had added The Queen of the Sun to our Netflix queue--but, what a winner this documentary was.

Beauty, science, nature, spirituality, gentle caretaking, man's misguided interference and a serious warning to the world. An ancient insect is now in peril.

If you're a gardener. If you love flowers. If you love fruit. If you're intrigued by the intricate symbiotic nature of nature. If you have concerns about pesticides--add Alzheimer's for bees to your worry list. If you want to know how genetically-modified (GMO) seeds are made--and what their impact might be on our environment & future food production--this will be an eye-opener. If you had no idea how miles and miles of fields planted only with one crop--like, corn and soybeans--can harm bees--you'll find out. If you had no idea that bee hives are now trucked thousands of miles in order to pollinate crops--and even bees are being fed high-fructose corn syrup. Or that there's such a thing as artificial insemination for Queen Bees--and there's a price to pay for messing with Queen's sex life!

You'll want to watch this movie.

But, is it boring and dry? Another gloom and movie, that should have been called, "Bee-pocalypse"?

Not at all! Gorgeous flowers. Some zany characters. Fascinating beekeepers & scenery from Italy, France, New Zealand, Oregon, and even the Bronx. An entomologist. A physicist. Biologists. And your eyes will be opened.

"QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from the award-winning director of THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN.

Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this alarming and ultimately uplifting film weaves together a dramatic story of the heart-felt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers around the world.

This spellbinding film explores the long-term causes that have led to one of our most urgent global food crises, illuminating the deep link between humans and bees.

The story unveils 10,000 years of beekeeping, highlighting how that historic and sacred relationship has been lost. Inspiring and entertaining, QUEEN OF THE SUN uncovers the problems and solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature."

“Beautifully blends poetry and science to tell the story of what may be the most important co-evolutionary bond on Earth… Queen of the Sun's optimistic tone suggests solutions will flower from the seeds of new perspectives.” - Rick Marianetti, The Examiner

“I never thought that a documentary about honeybees would make me both laugh and cry-but filmmaker Taggart Siegel’s Queen of the Sun is one such film.” -Dennis Hartley, Hullabaloo

Comments

Hi Debbie: Backyard beekeeping has exploded since people learned about colony collapse disorder. My husband Pete and I became beekeepers this spring ... Two families within 1/4 mile of us are beekeepers. We live in a rural area, so that's about 25% of our neighbors.

The social life of bees is fascinating. Although beekeeping has a modest learning curve, it is not a labor-intensive hobby. We started with 2 hives, and may expand next year. The bees were delivered in mid-April. Despite the stresses of winter, being shipped, and the need to create new communities, they were producing honey in a couple of weeks. We check the hives about once a week (although we visit them nearly every day to see what they are up to). Honeybees are bred to be gentle - although we open the hives, move the foundations (where they deposit pollen and honey), I have not been stung yet - I'm amazed.

Did you know that the White House has a beehive? It's a very productive hive too! When the WH staff learned that Michelle planned a kitchen garden, one staffer had a spare hive & offered to set it up. The chefs use WH honey in food served at State dinners, as gifts, and to make honey ALE!

If you and Lab Rat want to learn more, you'll find beekeeping classes at community colleges, conservatories, botanical gardens, organic gardens, etc. Google "beekeeping classes YOUR STATE." I think most classes are held in the winter so people are prepared to begin in the spring. Classes are also available online, but taking a class has additional benefits - including people who will act as your mentors. ~Pam

The likely culprit in sharp worldwide declines in honeybee colonies since 2006 is imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides, according to a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).

The authors, led by Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology in the Department of Environmental Health, write that the new research provides “convincing evidence” of the link between imidacloprid and the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which adult bees abandon their hives.

The study will appear in the June issue of the Bulletin of Insectology.

“The significance of bees to agriculture cannot be underestimated,” says Lu. “And it apparently doesn’t take much of the pesticide to affect the bees. Our experiment included pesticide amounts below what is normally present in the environment.”

Pinpointing the cause of the problem is crucial because bees — beyond producing honey — are prime pollinators of roughly one-third of the crop species in the United States, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and livestock feed such as alfalfa and clover. Massive loss of honeybees could result in billions of dollars in agricultural losses, experts estimate.

Lu and his co-authors hypothesized that the uptick in CCD resulted from the presence of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid introduced in the early 1990s. Bees can be exposed in two ways: through nectar from plants or through high-fructose corn syrup beekeepers use to feed their bees. (Since most U.S.-grown corn has been treated with imidacloprid, it’s also found in corn syrup.)

In the summer of 2010, the researchers conducted an in situ study in Worcester County aimed at replicating how imidacloprid may have caused the CCD outbreak. Over a 23-week period, they monitored bees in four different bee yards; each yard had four hives treated with different levels of imidacloprid and one control hive. After 12 weeks of imidacloprid dosing, all the bees were alive. But after 23 weeks, 15 of the 16 imidacloprid-treated hives had perished. Those exposed to the highest levels of the pesticide died first.

The characteristics of the dead hives were consistent with CCD, said Lu; the hives were empty except for food stores, some pollen, and young bees, with few dead bees nearby. When other conditions cause hive collapse — such as disease or pests — many dead bees are typically found inside and outside the affected hives.

Strikingly, said Lu, it took only low levels of imidacloprid to cause hive collapse — less than what is typically used in crops or in areas where bees forage.

Had to laugh about your husband's email asking you about "another loser movie?" This sounds like what would happen at my house. But how neat to hear that this movie is so good. My husband has kept bees off and on for the past 50 years or so. He just might like this movie.